


Memories of a Past Life

by BlueLightningAndNexus



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga), Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: And why they were never mentioned, Atem is the alpha and the omega, My explanation for why the protagonists never appear in Arc-V, The multiverse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:48:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23214289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueLightningAndNexus/pseuds/BlueLightningAndNexus
Summary: For any long-time Yugioh fans, Arc-V was a strange and ambitious story. For the first time it sought to create a cohesive whole out of the many spin-offs that came before it, but there were some gaps. Notably, the fact that Jaden, Yusei, Yuma and Astral are never once mentioned.In Episode 126, Kite and Aster rush to find Yuya imprisoned, and he briefly turns into the Supreme King. What if that conversation was longer? What if he transformed completely, and cued Kite and Aster in about what their past lives were like? What if he helped them remember?Chapter 2 rearranges some events from that arc and expands on chapter 1, turning this into a full-blown AU. A familiar face returns.
Comments: 29
Kudos: 59





	1. Chapter 1

Aster’s lungs were burning, but he kept running. This didn’t make any sense. Nothing made any sense.

He and Kite were sprinting down the hallway as fast as they could. Slowly, the pale marble of the Academy’s central hallways began to change into dark pathways of black bricks and cement in an architectural metamorphosis. Pretty soon, the breezy, expansive passages that Edo spent the last several years in transformed into stuffy, sinister rooms filled with all kinds of laboratories and machines that he wanted to know nothing about. The massive, glorious windows of the common rooms disappeared, as did the bright light spilling in from the gray and white sky. 

He could barely breathe. He didn’t know if it was the fact that he was running (practically sprinting at this point), trying to keep up with Kite while avoiding Academy security in the midst of the panic; or if it was the hot, dusty rooms.

When Kite slightly slowed his pace to search through rooms, Aster was grateful, but he could barely even speak. “YUYA!” Kite shouted, kicking open the wooden door to a small corridor. Empty.  
“Yuya…” Aster muttered between gasps, struggling to catch his breath.

Kite reversed direction, flying past Aster and ramming into a second door with his right shoulder. The rusted lock seemed to break apart and dissolve into dust with the force of the impact. The slab of wood flew open with the momentum of Kite’s charge, revealing a lab of wooden chairs, Academia-issued duel disks and small tables, pencils and crumpled pieces of paper scattered across the dense floor. Also empty.

“Damn it,” Kite hissed, his raspy voice growing closer and closer to an all-out growl the angrier he got. Once again flipping around, he grabbed Aster by the forearm, swinging the door closed behind him in the process.

“We need to find Yuya, now,” he hissed, venom infused into his words. “Where else would he be?”

“I’m telling you, I have no idea,” Aster replied, the panic in his words quickly being replaced by annoyance. “I’ve never been down here before.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“No, it’s not.” Aster pulled his arm away from Kite’s steel, cold grip. Rubbing the spot on his arm where Kite’s icy fingers wrapped around him, Aster peered upwards, turning around and examining the ceiling and walls. “I don’t think anyone my age has been down here.”

“Yuri probably has,” Kite retorted. The two scowled in remembrance of the tiny sociopath.

Footsteps echoed behind them, bouncing off the compressed black walls and reaching the two teenagers. “We need to keep moving,” Kite muttered. “More Academia soldiers will be here soon.”  
Wordlessly, Aster nodded and took off, Kite following behind him, each of their paces noticeably slowing this time. It didn’t take too long before Aster slowed, his brown leather shoes stamping into the dust and grinding him to a halt. They were at a four-way convergence of the hallways, every path looking identical.

“Shit,” Kite spat out, vitriolic anger more and more obvious. “Where should we go?”

The echoes began to disappear, replaced by the sounds of the footsteps themselves. The soldiers were no longer in the distance, they were probably in the same corridor, maybe closer.  
“We need to make a decision,” Aster thought aloud.

“Thanks, I never would’ve gue—“

“Shut up.”

Kite turned back to Aster, his eyes two orbs of blue fire, blazing with anger. He opened his mouth to chew out his peer, his former enemy, but without even looking back at him, Aster held up a finger, as if to command silence.

“No, seriously, shut up, I hear something.”

Aster tilted his head slightly to the left, a faint noise flowing past the darkness into earshot, words jumbled into nothingness and flowing all together. He pointed his still-raised finger down that direction, turning back to Kite.

“Do you hear that?”

Kite stepped forward, the methodical, calm pace of his steps betraying the danger they were in. Past the sounds of his own footsteps against the cement and beyond the noises of incoming enemies, he heard something.

Kite turned back to face Aster, but Aster took off, flying past Kite before he could say anything.

“Let’s go!” Aster told Kite in a half-whisper-half-yell. Kite followed closely.

“Do you recognize this at all,” Kite inquired.

“Still no, but I heard something, a voice of some sort.”

“I heard it too. How do we know it’s Yuya?”

“We don’t.” Kite couldn’t refute that.

The sounds they heard transformed, sounding more pained, strained. Grunts and groans of agony replaced any words that Aster might have heard. Aster sped up; Kite followed. Just barely missing the sounds of heavy footsteps flying along the stone floors, the two ducked into a second corridor, wider than the one’s before it.  
The noises stopped.

“What…the hell is going on…” Aster muttered under his breath, confusing and betrayal flying through him. He was the Professor’s most loyal servant; how could he not have known about this place for his entire life, but Yuri seemed to know everything about this godforsaken building?

Kite didn’t bother letting anger get the best of him, at least not this time. The Heartland survivor took everything in: the elevated segments of the floor, the unusually tall ceilings, the fact that this place seemed to drown out any other noise…and the massive cage in the middle of the room.

It was an iron structure, low to the floor, with gaps between bars of iron coated in dust and orange with rust revealing a figure on the ground, a cloak of sorts covering their green locks…

“Yuya!” Kite shouted, running over to the cage, the recognition of a familiar face snapping Aster out of his state of self-pity. Kite kneeled down to the Dueltainer’s level, Aster following suite and trying to communicate with their ally.

“Yuya! What are you doing down here?”

“Did they hurt you? Does anyone know where you…”

Kite trailed off, the space behind Yuya’s scarlet locks overlaid with green patches of hair revealing a menacing, haunting pair of eyes glowing a dull, malicious shade of maroon. “Shit,” Kite hissed, leaning in closer to their friend, his fingerless gloves wrapping around the rusted metal. “Does this have anything to do with that mind-control technology you were telling me about.”

“I’m not sure,” Aster muttered, pulling himself back up to his feet and looking around the otherwise empty room. “I highly doubt it. It shouldn’t cause any physical changes in the user.”

Yuya slowly rose up from his position on the ground, dust scattered around his face, hands and shirt, eyes unblinking and unmoving.

“Why the fuck is he not saying anything if he’s not brainwashed?!”

“Maybe he’s just in shock, it happens to the best of us,” Aster mumbled in reply. He cocked his head to the side, trying to get a better look at Yuya’s irises, but he was interrupted by a cold, inhuman voice.

“God, you should see yourself in a mirror.” The voice didn’t come from Aster, nor did it come from Kite.

“Y-yuya? Are you okay?” Aster tried to sound confident and calm, but he didn’t have the strength in him to show it, and their Pendulum-using friend seemed to notice. The words turned to a cackle, throaty and pained and foreign. “You looked absolutely rattled,” Yuya mocked, making direct eye contact with Aster all the while he did so.

“What the fuck is going on with him,” Kite muttered under his breath. Aster had no answer for any of this.

“I’m not sure why you seem so shocked,” Yuya told Aster, tuning out Kite and brushing past his statement entirely. “After all, you’ve seen much worse.”

The words were slow, methodical, calculative, as if to pry at Aster’s fears and weaknesses and expose them to the world. It worked. Aster’s entire tone and body language changed, and he suddenly leaned in close to Yuya, his fear suddenly replaced with anger and determination. “You’re not Yuya, are you?”

“What are you talking about? You idiot,” Kite told his silver-haired ally, “of course that’s Yuya, who else would it be? He’s clearly brainwashed, to some degree or another.”

“I’d be unresponsive if I was,” Yuya told Kite, paying attention to him for the first time throughout their ominous conversation, “and I’m obviously not in shock, Phoenix.”

He spoke Aster’s surname like it was a threat; the former Duel Academy commander hated it, gritting his teeth as he spoke slowly, letting Yuya take every word of his question in. “What did you mean when you said that I’ve seen worse?”

Yuya narrowed his eyes, the Stepford smile concealing his pain fading for a split-second, before he started to let out another set of chuckles. It was uncomfortably close to Yuya’s real voice, but just slightly off; it reminded Aster of…something, like some far-off dream from a world that never existed.

“Goddamn, you really don’t remember, do you?” The dull, demonic ruby glow of Yuya’s eyes brightened and burned. It felt unnatural to hear Yuya curse; the dialect felt off in a way that Aster couldn’t explain.

“Shut up,” Aster spat. “Who are you?”

“I’m surprised that I’m rattling you as much as I am.” Yuya(?) leaned in slightly until his nose was almost touching Aster’s through the gap in the bars. “After all, I’m not the first Supreme King you’ve encountered.”

Without thinking, Kite slammed his fist into the rusted bar closest to Yuya’s face; the Dueltainer didn’t even flinch. “Shut the fuck up, before I come in there and tear you in half.” Kite growled through each word, bearing his teeth like a wild animal. Yuya didn’t say a word in response; he seemed almost bored with Kite’s anger, which only infuriated the Xyz duelist further.

Kite retracted his arm, ready to swing at Yuya again (and this time without missing), but Aster grabbed Kite’s wrist and stopped his movement. 

“Wait,” Aster piped up, focus maintained on Yuya. “What was that name you just said?” The anger had left his eyes, replacing a pensiveness that not-Yuya and Kite hadn’t seen before in the former Academy Commander. 

“The Supreme King,” Yuya emotionlessly replied, as if the title was the most common thing in the world. “I can see the wheels turning in your head, Phoenix.” Once again, Yuya seemed to hiss the surname like an insult, but Aster didn’t even notice this time. 

“Aster, what is it?” Kite slipped his wrist from Aster’s grip and placed both hands on the gray material of Aster’s uniform that covered his shoulders. “Do you recognize that name? Is that anything Akaba told you about?”

“No,” Aster answered, slightly wincing in pain as he struggled with his own memories, “it’s nothing he told me, but it’s something familiar nonetheless.”

“Not only is the name familiar, but I’m familiar.” Kite turned to Yuya, his fury replaced with concern for his friend. “Of course you’re familiar, Yuya’s our comrade.” Kite’s voice began to waver slightly, the angry rasp quickly leaving his voice. “Please, Yuya, stop this.” 

No reaction. Yuya shrugged in response, his demon eyes unblinking and unmoving. He looked past Kite and at Aster, the former Commander slowly raising his left hand to his temple as he struggled with his own thoughts. 

“I...I remember something about that name.” 

“Yuya?” Kite inquired. 

Aster closed his eyes, filtering out the sights of the world around him: Yuya’s burning eyes, Kite’s worried stare, the concrete walls, the rusted cage, all of it. He tried to focus on whatever was in his mind and what was calling out to him. 

“Not that,” Aster replied. “That title: the Supreme King. Something about that...I recognize it. Same for his voice.”

“What?” Kite was now staring at Aster in much the same way he stared at Yuya: like Aster was crazy, and with more than a little concern and frustration. 

“Don’t you hear it?” 

“No, nothing about it sounds like Yuya,” Kite replied. “It sounds fiendish and unnatural.” Kite didn’t have anything to say at their former comrade through the cage, but his usual glare did return. 

“It doesn’t sound like Yuya, no,” Aster conceded. “...but it sounds like someone else I know.”

Yuya’s voice...it didn’t sound like anything he had heard before. But the slight variation in tone, syntax and dialect reminded him of someone he knew. Aster tried to hone in on this thought, racking his brain for anyone he knew from the Academy: teachers, comrades, classmates, even himself, but none of them had any resemblance to what Aster recognized. 

The horrible sense of deja vu worsened, but Aster knew there was some substance to it. There has to be. 

“Stop trying to remember people you know in this world,” Yuya told him, the sinister quality in his voice leaving him. “Try to remember people from other worlds.”

“I’m a resident of the Fusion Dimension,” Aster told him as he raised his right hand to the side of his head, eyes still firmly shut. “The only people I’ve known from any other worlds are Yuya and Kite.”

“I’m not talking about the Xyz and Standard Dimensions, dumbass,” Yuya retorted, the sinister, angry rasp returning to his voice. “Think beyond the four Dimensions.”

“What in the hell are you talking about?” Kite shouted. Turning his body to face Aster, Kite grabbed Aster’s forearms in a death grip. “Aster, listen to me, this is like the Professor. He’s just trying to get into your head.”

Yuya started howling with laughter. “Trying? I’m already in his head!” His words menacingly echoed off the tight walls of the room, booming in Kite’s ears. 

Pulling himself off the unmoving Aster, Kite turned back to Yuya. 

“Shut the hell up. Yuya, cut it out, we’re trying to get you out.”

“I think it’s fairly obvious that I’m not Yuya,” he said. He raised his voice a pitch and spoke again. “But doesn’t he remind you of anyone else you might know, Kite? That familiar fun energy to his dueling, his age, his monsters...don’t they elicit some kind of deja vu in you as well?”

All at once, Kite’s head started throbbing. “Yuya, shut the FUCK up.”

“It unsettles you, doesn’t it?” Yuya asked. “To know there was something once in your head that isn’t there anymore. Some information that must have been fate-altering, mind-bending, life-changing. It could be any *number* of things, wouldn’t you say?” he asked with a devilish grin, putting emphasis on the word number. 

The pupils in Kite’s eyes dilated. He was getting closer, like a treasure hunter approaching a chest of gold. He was almost there, the memories in his grasp. What were they?

“They say that before the Fusion Dimension invaded, you were actually a nice kid,” Yuya/The Supreme King told him. “But I don’t believe that. For as long as I’ve watched you, dueling was just a tool. A tool for you to gain ground on others, to derive advantages. There’s no way that anyone like you actually has fun doing it.”

In the background, the sound of footsteps started to increase. They had mere minutes to get Yuya to shut up and get him out of here before they were caught. 

“I hear Shun was something of a friendly rival to you,” Yuya whimsically mentioned, “but there was someone else before him. Someone even greater of a rival; in fact, there were two someones,” Yuya said, holding up two fingers on his right hand. 

“Each of them fought you; they worked together and pushed you to new limits, to soaring heights. Tell me, Mr. Kite Tenjo: does the same “Yuma Tsukumo” ring a bell to you at all?”  
It has like a dam broke, and a flood went through Kite’s mind. All at once, everything he thought he’d known about his life in the Xyz Dimension was shattered. New memories rang through instead, but they weren’t new at all, they were old, old as this universe itself. 

Images flashed through his mind. A set of numbers, with “39” and “62” standing out in particular. A tall, transparent and blue man (“Astral,” Kite said with a gasp, “how could I forget about you?”). A hyperactive young boy with pink highlights in his hair. A brooding teenager with blue-purple hair and a violet jacket that loved to antagonize him. The pains in his chest each time he tried to duel. It all came back. 

“Who...who are these people?” he asked Yuya. Damn the fact that this wasn’t really Yuya, and damn his stubbornness to never try to unlock these memories sooner. Now, he needed answers. Even if it killed him. 

“It’s not obvious? This universe isn’t really your universe at all,” Yuya told him. “They are four sides to the same world, the dimensions. Xyz, Fusion, Synchro, Standard; of them, the latter was the closest to the original. Before the Great Split, they were all one massive, glorious world. But now they are split up, because of my doing.”

Aster reached through and grabbed Yuya’s neck, pulling him against the rails. 

“Tell me, so-called “Supreme King”, what does that title really mean? And why can’t we remember these people?”

Yuya clicked his tongue. “My-my, you really don’t remember do you? You don’t remember Duel Academy before the split, or how Alexis Rhodes used to be at the top of her class, or how Chazz Princeton was only one of two duelists to ever beat you. You don’t remember working with the others to fight Yubel; the frustration of being stuck with those Slifer losers; you don’t remember fighting Adrian Gecko. But most of all...wow, you really don’t remember the great Jaden Yuki at all, do you?”

Each name was like a slap to the face, but Aster nearly lost his mind with that final sentence. All at once, it was like a puzzle piece that he didn’t even know was missing clicked into place. He lost any motivation to keep his hand against Yuya’s neck; he fell back, unceremoniously letting go and letting Yuya breathe again. 

“J...Jaden? Oh my god, how could I forget him? How could I forget ANY of them?”

“The mind is a fickle thing,” Yuya explained, raising a finger as if he were some old sage cautioning them about the future, “and the memory even more so. When universes split, memories tend to as well. We were all from the same universe, originally, but different time periods. Aster was born a decade before the others, like Crow and Jack; and Kite wouldn’t be born for decades afterwards. But now, in this new multiverse, each time period became its own world.”

Yuya looked over to find Kite...crying? Unfamiliar tears started to fall down his face and onto the stone floor. 

“They were my friends,” he exclaimed. “My rivals. But now they’re gone?”

Suddenly furious, he put both hands against the cage and started to shake it violently. 

“HOW ARE THEY GONE? WHERE DID THEY GO?” the Photon duelist shouted frantically. 

“Simple,” Yuya told them. “We edited them out of the picture. Like a typo in an essay, they didn’t belong. They would’ve interfered with the cohesion--the flow of my plans--so they had to be removed.”  
“You KILLED them?!” Aster angrily questioned. 

“No, no, that would be too cruel! I’m not some savage,” Yuya proclaimed, raising his hands in surrender. “It’s more like...they never existed to begin with.”

Before Kite could do anything stupid, the Duel Academy guards burst into the room. There were seven of them in total, each quickly circling the three duelists on the ground and completely surrounding them. 

“Welp, time to go,” Yuya said with a devilish smile. A shadowy blackness started to emerge from his body, and Aster had a sinking feeling as to what would happen next. 

"No, no, WAI-”

He was cut off. Yuya--The Supreme King--let forth an explosion of darkness, splitting the cage in half and knocking out everyone in the room. Kite was sent flying into a wall, and Aster was sent into a nearby table, before crumpling into the ground. Unlike the others, he would retain his consciousness a bit longer, but only for a few seconds, helpless to do anything but watch. 

Maybe it was his rapidly diminishing consciousness, maybe it was his new memories flooding back and nearly destroying his mind, but as Yuya walked out of the room, he reminded Aster of another world-famous duelist. 

“Ja...den.”

Aster blacked out. 

_________________

Aster and Kite awoke before any of the guards did. Yuya was gone, and judging by the sounds of a duel going on upstairs, he was fighting someone else. Perhaps he met up with Reiji.  
“Aster…” Kite moaned in pain, trying to bring himself back to his feet. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know,” Aster said, clutching his head in pain. Everything felt fuzzy, and everything hurt. “What...the hell were those memories?”

“I don’t know.”

“And what was he saying about time periods, and dimensions?”

“I don’t know,” Kite emphasized. 

A brief silence fell before them as they both pulled themselves to their feet. 

“We have to get moving,” Aster said. 

“Agreed.” 

The two duelists moved as fast as they could out the door, ready to pursue their fallen friend.


	2. Chapter 2: Rivals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leo has to report this incident to his superior, who takes drastic action. Failure is not an option.

“How did he get out?”

Leo Akaba stood before the guard of his, one of the higher-ranking 3rd years at Duel Academy. The green lenses on the guards mask were cracked, a result of his confrontation with Yuya, Kite and Aster. 

“I’m...not sure, sir.”

“You’re not sure?” Leo’s voice remained calm but it hid a ferocious storm. He never respected such vagueness or incompetence from his guards, especially not during a time of crisis like this. As he talked, he watched his monitors intently, each of them trained to a specific duelist: Yuya running through the corridors, looking for Yuzu; Yugo and Yuri fighting tooth-and-nail in the main hall; and Aster and Kite, running in an adjacent dormroom and close to intercepting Yugo. 

“No, sir. He emitted some kind of...wave out of his body, sir.”

Leo raised an eyebrow. “Really? What was this, a monster of some kind?”

“No, sir. His duel disk was separated, and no duel had been initiated when we walked in. I have no idea what it was, but whatever it might’ve been, it had nothing to do with hard light technology.”

Leo smirked. Things were starting to get interesting. 

“It knocked me and the other four guards out,” the guard continued. “When we awoke, they were gone. We must’ve been out for a couple of minutes.”

Leo sighed. Oh, well. Nothing to be done. 

“Thank you for telling me this. That’s quite enlightening. That’ll be all.”

“O-oh. You’re not mad, sir? I thought for sure you’d send me and my comrades to solitary confinement.”

“If what you say is true, there are greater powers at work than you can understand, boy. That’ll be all,” Leo repeated, a bit more sternly than last time. 

The guard gulped, and quickly turned around and started to exit the room. The rest of his comrades awaited outside the door. 

The two were talking in Leo’s Master Communications Room, where he stored most of the monitors and computers he used to keep tabs on everyone in Duel Academy. During an invasion time like now, with all these outsiders from the Synchro, Standard and--ugh--even Xyz Dimension pouring in, Leo rarely left the room. This had happened before, and it wasn’t pretty. 

Right as the guard put his hand on the door handle, Leo spoke up without taking his eyes off the computers. 

“Remind me again, soldier, did you hear anything that the duelists were talking about before you entered.”

“Uh, no, sir. Nothing specific. The tall blond one--”

“Mr. Tenjo, yes? Kite Tenjo?”

“Um, yes sir. Anyways, he was getting quite agitated. Tried to grab the prisoner through the bars.”

“Hm, how curious,” Leo said. “Anyways, it’d be best for you to rejoin your comrades in Sector C. With that Akaba child there, I’m sure they could use you.”

The guard’s curiosity peaked, and nearly asked about the relation, but decided against it. However, as he started leaving, another thought appeared in his mind. 

“Actually, there was one more thing I forgot to mention in my report.”

“Oh? And what would that be?”

“The brown haired duelist. Phoenix. Right as me and my comrades lost consciousness, I heard him whisper a name, but I didn’t recognize it from the report you sent me.”

Leo swiveled around in his chair. Could it be?

“What was the name, soldier?”

“Well, sir, I’m not sure I heard it right, but the other guards can account for this as well. Me and another one of my peers though we heard him say “Jaden”. But the prisoner’s name was Sakaki, yes?”

Leo smiled. Things were starting to get interesting, now weren’t they? Did Zarc tell them? He must’ve. Based on what the guard was saying, it sounds like Sakaki “awakened” once more and started spilling everything he knew. Or at least some of it. 

“That’s correct, soldier. Did you find anything on that name?”

“We checked the records, sir. We couldn’t find a last name, but it sounds like a student by the name of “Jaden” existed in our systems at one point, but not anymore.”

That caught Leo off guard. “Come again?”

“It’s hard to explain, sir. But based on what we found, it sounds like a Jaden was once enrolled in the same class as Mr. Princeton and Truesdale, even though we couldn’t find that name in any attendance records or duel records. That’s gotta be a mistake, right?”

Leo struggled to maintain his composure. Damn, it sounds like Zarc’s “edit” wasn’t as clean as they’d hoped. This was sure to displease his superior. 

“Of course. One of the first-years must’ve slipped through the cracks in our network,” Leo said, trying to keep a cool head. “Don’t concern yourself with such foolishness. Go on, go to Sector C as I commanded.” 

The guard suddenly seemed mortified for caring about something so insignificant. “Uh, yes sir, right away, sir.”

With that, he scuttled off. The second he left the room and the door closed, Leo put his head in his hands. 

“Shit. What am I to do?” 

It didn’t take a genius to know they were at the breaking point. He glanced back at the monitors. Yugo had just been joined by Kite and Aster, turning it into a battle royale duel. Meanwhile, glancing at a second screen, it seems that Yuya has just encountered Serena and Ruri. 

Furiously clicking around, Leo found another screen and found what Yuya was so worked up about: he’d found Yuzu with the Doctor, but the other two girls were blocking him. 

Good, Leo thought. The Doctor needed just a couple more minutes to perfect his technology on Yuzu, then his plan would start coming together soon. 

Any minute now, things would start coming apart. The rebels had already infiltrated, but Leo could handle them. No, no, what he was worried about was Yuri. 

Yuya had already absorbed Yuto, that much his spies could tell him. And Leo knew his prodigy; even against three of the multiverse’s top duelists, Yuri would still win, and absorb Yugo. But that’d bring Zarc even closer to completion. 

Zarc had split into four boys, never to see each other, separated across universes, yet here they all were. If Yuya were to awaken again, the true nature of the situation could start to come to light, and that would spell disaster. Leo thought of some of his best students: the Truesdale brothers, Princeton, Phoenix, even Misawa. How would they react if they knew the truth? 

Leo scoffed. He already knew the truth. They’d mutiny against him, and his family would never be whole again. 

Speaking of family, he looked over at one of the monitors. It displayed his biological son, Reiji, and his adopted daughter, Riley. 

Leo might feel pride at how strong his children had become if it weren’t for his immense frustration that they were directly thwarting his plans. But no longer. He’d just have to face Reiji and Yuya himself. 

He prepared his duel disk. Shuffling his desk and inserting it into the holder, he threw on his coat and stepped out of the chair, before a thought occurred to him. 

“In the event I don’t make it out of this, I should inform him of the situation.”

Leo strapped his duel disk onto his wrist, the screen loading up and displaying his deck and extra deck. As he did so, he typed his companion’s name into the keyboard, and within seconds, it pierced across the Academy’s network. 

Leo Akaba considered himself a man of few friends. Same as his son, he’d always been something of a recluse, something of a reserved man. Yet, even the most reserved and private of men needed an inner circle, and while the Doctor was endlessly valuable to Leo, there was only one person he valued more. The man who provided this technology in the first place to Duel Academy.

The screen loaded up, displaying a man in his mid-30s, only a few years younger than Leo himself. He was quite tall, standing at nearly two meters, with a scanner around his blazing sapphire eye, an ashen gray coat, and some of the multiverse’s most advanced dueling technology strapped to his wrist. 

Seto Kaiba looked down at Akaba from the massive monitor, and spoke. 

“Do we have a situation, Leo?”

“Yes, sir. It seems that Yuya’s control over Zarc is slipping; he’s already told the nature of our situation--or at least some of it--to two of the rebels.”

Kaiba frowned deeply. It was an expression Leo was used to. “Who?”

“Aster Phoenix and Kite Tenjo. They know about Yuma Tsukumo, Astral, and Jaden Yuki now.” 

Kaiba sighed. Of course, he thought to himself, because nothing is easy anymore. 

“Phoenix? Wasn’t he one of the students I sent there?”

“Yes, but it seems he’s joined up with the Sakaki boy and my son.”

“Reiji’s caused us troubles for the last time,” Kaiba warned him. “If you don’t deal with him now, I’ll do it myself, and rest assured I won’t go easy on him.”

“I never expected you to, but don’t worry. I’ll beat him,” Leo said. Despite the confidence he put on in front of the Kaiba Corp CEO, Leo knew all too well how much his son had grown in just the last year or two; Reiji might prove a challenge to him after all, especially if Yuya gets there as well. 

“You better. If you don’t, neither of us can bring back the people we want. I know how important seeing your daughter is for you, but be warned, your service won’t end there.”

“I’m well aware,” Leo told him. “Once I bring her back, we can get rid of Zarc’s descendants and repair the dimensions. All the people we miss can be returned to us.”

“Defeating the Sakaki boy won’t be an easy task, Akaba. I’m heading over there as we speak. If I need to, I’ll defeat him in person.”

“Oh, that won’t be--”

“AKABA!” Kaiba exploded, slamming his fist into the table. “I’ve waited 14 long years for this. 14 long years, working with you, to repair things to the way they once were. The only reason we could succeed is because Zarc stupidly took Fudo, Tsukumo and Yuki out of the picture once things went to shit.” 

A silence fell over the two men. Leo Akaba knew very little about Seto Kaiba from the Original Dimension, besides what he read in books and old newspaper, but what he did know was that the CEO was single-minded, immensely determined to the point of obsession, and dead serious at all times. 

On the other end of the screen, Kaiba started to ready his jet, slipping his own duel disk equipment into a small metallic briefcase. He paused for a moment, looking at two items on his desk, each relics of a universe gone. 

The first was something he held close to his heart. A picture of a little kid with messy black hair and the biggest smile on his face. That little kid became a man, and that man was no more. Kaiba still missed him, but forced himself to focus again, albeit letting his eyes glance over the second item. 

The second was something that only came into his possession recently, though recently was a relative term. It was a pyramid-shaped puzzle with an eye in the center, with a chain draped over the hole on the top and forming it into a necklace. The eye seemed to watch him wherever he went, filling him with guilt of the ones he couldn’t save, the losses he endured and the life he lost. 

“Leo,” Kaiba said, turning back to his subordinate, “I’m not taking any chances. I’ve waited a decade and a half to restore reality and duel the Pharaoh again. And I’m not waiting a day longer. I’ll be there in an hour. Defeat your son at all costs. Stall Sakaki for as long as you can, and if it comes to it, I’ll finish him and your apprentice myself.”

“What about Tenjo and Phoenix?”

“If Yuri is half of what you claim him to be, he’ll finish them. And if not, I’ll fight the two myself. We need to wrap up all loose ends. We have to be the only ones to know about Tsukumo, Fudo and Yuki. That’s the way things have always been, and that’s the way they’ll always be.”

Through the computers, the two men stared at each other, and both nodded in agreement. Both hardened by loss, both looking for a chance to restore what went wrong. Both with a grudge to settle. 

Kaiba thought back on the last month, ever since the battle royale in Standard Dimension. That was when Sakaki truly awakened his full potential and started hopping around dimensions. 

Kaiba clicked his mouse and ended the call. 

It occured to Kaiba that, if Yuya continued at his current rate of success, he might soon rival the duelists of old. Kaiba had met Jaden Yuki briefly, and had been around by the time Yusei Fudo rose out of the Satellite. Yuya carried that same fire of those two, the same fire that made dueling Yugi such a rush. 

Kaiba smiled. Ever since he’d lost to the Pharaoh and been separated from him and Yugi, he’d felt like his life was missing...something. He longed for the rush of a good duel: the blood in his ears, the sound of dragons roaring around him, his heart pounding in his chest. Maybe Yuya could scratch that itch. 

He’d been watching the boys progress in the Synchro Dimension. There were so many times he could’ve--no, should’ve--lost, gotten injured, or worse. And yet he kept on fighting, and he kept on getting better. 

“I hope it was all worth it, Yuya Sakaki,” Kaiba said to himself. “Traveling across worlds, leaving your family behind. Because your journey is going to come to an end soon.”

There was no more time to waste. His jet was waiting. It was time for the fight of his life. 

Seto Kaiba was going to see Atem again, at all costs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When Arc V was airing I saw a theory that said that Kaiba was going to be the final villain. I initially dismissed it, because Yugioh is a very self-contained story and each series tends to stand on its own. But low and behold, imagine my shock when it turns out GX, 5Ds and ZEXAL all had major plot elements and characters appear in the story. 
> 
> The AU I crafted is this: all of the first four Yugioh series take place in the same universe. DM is set in the late 90s/early 2000s, with GX being set 7-10 years after. 5Ds, in turn, is set most likely in the 2030s. ZEXAL is set much farther in the future, maybe in the late 2090s/early 2100s. When Ray and Zarc separated the dimensions, characters from different time periods were relegated to different universes. So all the characters in the 5Ds era went to the Synchro world, all of the characters in the ZEXAL era went to the Xyz world, etc.  
> Kaiba and the cast of Duel Monsters appeared in the Standard Dimension. However, Zarc "edited out" all of the protagonists (Yugi, Jaden, Yusei, and Yuma) in a cosmic retcon. Kaiba seeks to restore reality to what it once was, so he can bring Yugi and/or Atem back to existence and have one final, ultimate duel.


	3. Chapter 3: Confrontation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaiba finally arrives, and havoc is wreaked everywhere. A lose adaption of Episodes 126-130.

“AKABA!”

Yuya stormed into the room. Yusho, Reira and Reiji were all to the side, watching as the dueltainer practically sprinted in, eyes ablaze with anger. 

Yuya made eye contact with Leo. The man stood before him in a royal purple uniform, making him seem almost kingly. Yuya scowled. This man wasn’t worth the trouble it took to get here. He’d ruined too many lives, and as long as Yuya had oxygen left in his lungs, he wasn’t going to let Leo ruin another. 

“Ah, Yusho, your son has arrived,” Leo declared, voice booming across the otherwise empty room. 

Yuya pulled out his duel disk and practically slammed it on his wrist, the small device taking shape around his arm and ejecting its energy blades. “Leo, take me on, right here. Right now.”

“Oh, aren’t we feeling confident,” Leo said. He turned to Yusho, a smirk on his face. “Your son really is something, isn’t he?”

For the first time since storming in, Yuya bothered to look to his left and notice the other people around him. At the sight of his father, Yuya’s eyes started to well up with tears. 

“D-dad?” Yuya asked. That confidence--that anger--was gone in an instant, replaced with a deep sadness and fondness. He couldn’t just bring Yuzu home. It had been so long since he’d seen his father--so long since anyone had seen him. His mother must miss him so much. 

“Son,” Yusho said, a smile on his face. His son had grown up so much, and so fast. He was following in Yusho’s footsteps, entertaining and being one of the best duelists in the multiverse. In that moment, Yusho felt nothing but pride. 

Yuya became momentarily distracted by his father. Leo seemed to fade in the distance. Yuya reached a hand out to his dad, wiping the tears away with his other hand. 

“Dad...why did you leave mom and I?”

Yusho was taken aback. He opened his mouth, ready to speak, but Yuya interrupted him. 

“Actually, nevermind. It doesn’t matter. You’ll have plenty of time to explain yourself on the way home. I’m bringing you back to mom, whether you like it or not.”

Yuya looked over to Reiji, adjusting the brim of his glasses with his pointer finger. Yuya thought about how far he had come. In mere weeks, he’d gone from being an ant beneath Reiji Akaba’s foot, so far behind in power he might as well have not existed; to someone who despised Reiji with every fiber of his being; to someone who had immense respect for the young man. 

Reiji smiled, a rare, cherished look that very few people had ever seen. “Yuya, are you ok?”

Reiji might be Yuya’s friend, but first and foremost, he was also his superior. And a commander had to make sure his soldiers were capable of fighting. 

“Reiji, I’m better than ever. Are we doing this together?”

Reiji slapped his own duel disk onto his arm, unfolding into red blades of light. “I have as much of a bone to pick with my old man as you do.”

Leo couldn’t help himself. He started to laugh. These two might be some of the strongest duelists the multiverse had seen in decades, but they were still children. “You really think you can stop me? Son? Sakaki?”

Leo’s own duel disk activated. He drew his first 5 cards, and a message popped up on his disk: INITIATING DUEL. 

“Fine, have it your way.”

Behind him the entire brick wall started to open up and ascend, revealing four capsules filled with a strange, green gas. Yuya’s eyes widened in horror as he noticed the people within them. 

“No,” he muttered. “Is that...Yuzu?”

On the capsule farthest to the left, a familiar girl with pink hair cut into a bob, held up by blue spherical clips. Her eyes, bright and blue like the ocean, lit up when she saw Yuya. She immediately began pounding on the glass, shouting, trying to say ANYTHING, but Yuya could barely hear her. 

Yuya scanned the capsules from left to right. After Yuzu was Selena, then that Ruri girl from the laboratory, followed by an unfamiliar girl with green hair. That must be Rin, Yugo’s friend. 

Yuya scowled. They all looked so...terrified. Helpless. He was beginning to lose his cool. Anger boiled up inside of him, consuming him, devouring him. Reiji looked over at the boy and gave him a concerned glance. 

“Yuya, you can’t lose your cool,” his commander told him. “I need you to keep a calm head if we’re going to do this.”

“It’s too late for that, Reiji,” Yuya spat back. Reiji thought he noticed Yuya’s eyes growing...darker. Redder. A blaze awakened inside his irises, until they were practically glowing. “I’m too angry to think straight.”

_________________

Dozens of students--Slifer Red’s, Ra Yellow’s, and, of course, Obelisk Blue’s--watched in awe as the jet descended. 

It was a massive vehicle, with sleek, black-tinted windows, yet it barely made a sound as it descended and the cockpit opened. Most peculiarly, it was shaped like a massive, white dragon. 

Seto Kaiba practically leaped out of the jet before it had even landed in the now ruined Duel Academy courtyard, and he took a running start at the main entrance. This was his chance to set everything right. All of the major players from the last year had gathered together in one spot. And he wouldn’t miss it for the world. 

“Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Three Obelisk Blue students stood before him, eclipsing the entrance. He sighed. Once again, nothing was ever easy, was it?

“Step out of my way, brats. I’ve funded this hellhole, if I want to enter I can.” He was already wasting precious seconds--seconds in which somebody might be learning more about Tsukumo and Yuki. Seconds in which Sakaki could be merging. He didn’t have that kind of time to waste. 

“Not a chance,” the tallest of the three Blues told him. Pulling out his duel disk, he inserted his deck and activated the device, ready for battle. The other three joined in shortly thereafter. 

Kaiba rolled his eyes. His virtual headset automatically activated, and an icon in the corner of his vision read “HP: 4000.”

“Fine, but I’m making this quick.”

But soon enough, he wouldn’t need to settle for these miserable twerps. Soon, he could fight a true challenger. 

________________

Yugo stared down his opponent. Here he was: the man that’d been making his and Rin’s lives miserable for the last few months. The man he’d worked so long and hard to find. 

Himself. Specifically, another version of himself. 

“Here I GO!” Yuri shouted, drawing his card. The duel had just started, but already, Yuri was sending chills down Yugo’s spine. He had a tendency to do that, what with that sinister, horrible grin of his and those devilish, serpentine eyes. 

“I activate Polymerization from my hand!” Yuri gleefully shouted. Behind him, a swirling vortex of blue and orange appeared, and he began cackling. “With it, I can fuse any monsters from my hand or field.”

The Extra Deck slit on his duel disk automatically opened, and Yuri pulled out a familiar purple-outlined card of his. His smile grew wider. “The fusion requirements are two DARK attribute monsters. I fuse the level 2 Predaplant Flytrap and the level 4 Predaplant Moray Nepenthes.”

The two monsters appeared behind him. Flytap became consumed with orange energy, and Moray Nepenthes with blue energy, before they started swirling together. 

“I FUSION SUMMON: my ace monster, Starving Venom Fusion Dragon!” 

_______________

Reiji couldn’t believe his eyes. 

For months he’d been optimizing his deck, honing it to perfection. Carefully crafting his deck to account for every single possibility, every single outcome or mechanic imaginable. Synchro, Fusion, Xyz, Pendulum, they were all here. He managed to bring out all four Extra Deck summoning methods in a single turn. 

And yet, his father destroyed his iron-clad wall in an instant, bringing out a new, terrifying monster, and cutting his health down in the process. The rebel leader looked over at Yuya, shaken. 

“Yuya, don’t disappoint me. Bring us back.”

Yuya’s fingers hovered over the top of his deck. It was his turn now. 

“Don’t worry, Reiji. That’s the plan. Cause now I’m furious, and your father…”

His eyes grew even darker and more merciless than before, and his hair and cape started to stand up on their own, as if his anger defied gravity itself. He drew his card. 

“...is going to PAY.”

Yuya put the new card in his hand, examining his options. “I use the set Pendulum Scales in order to PENDULUM SUMMON: Odd-Eyes from my Extra Deck, and Performapal U Go Golem, whose effect I activate! I now can fuse these two together without a Polymerization!”

The two monsters began swirling together, Golem stacked on Odd-Eyes, before the two became one new entity, indistinguishable from its parts. 

“I FUSION SUMMON: Performapal Gattlinghoul!”

Yusho’s eyes widened with terror. What was his son becoming? All of that energy from earlier...gone. Replaced with maliciousness and hatred. 

“I now activate the two effects of Gattlinghoul: the first is that it deals 200 points of damage to you for every card on the field, and the second is that I can target one monster, destroy it, and deal its ATK to you as damage. And I choose...Pendulum Governor!”

___________

The three Obelisk Blue students watched in awe as Seto Kaiba, head of Kaiba Corporation and the #2 duelist on the planet, drew his first card. 

“I activate the effect of Blue-Eyes Alternative Dragon in my hand! I send one Blue-Eyes White Dragon to the Graveyard to summon it, and then its name becomes Blue-Eyes White Dragon!”

He threw one card into his virtual graveyard. In an instant, Blue-Eyes Alternative Dragon came to the field, creating a small whirlwind of white energy with its presence. On the card, its name quickly changed to accomodate the effect. 

The three students looked up at their masterpiece: VWXYZ Dragon Catapult Cannon. The tallest of the three Obelisk Blue students spoke. 

“You think that scares us? We still have our magnum opus, and it’s as strong as your Blue-Eyes. Next turn we can just banish your monster and attack for game.”

“I don’t CARE!” Kaiba shouted. “You think I haven’t noticed my monster’s ATK? I know this deck like the back of my hand, and I pioneered the deck you’re using. But remember, my turn isn’t up.”

He reached over and pulled another card out of his hand. “I activate DARK CORE.”

The Normal Spell appeared on the field, quickly summoning a massive, shadowy vortex. “Let me explain,” Kaiba told them. “By discarding one card, I can destroy one monster on the field. I discard: a second Blue-Eyes White Dragon!”

He sent another copy of his ace to the graveyard, and a hologram appeared of the monster flying into the vortex. Immediately, a laser shot out of the vortex, destroying VWXYZ Dragon Catapult Cannon. 

“But my turn’s not up. I activate: DRAGON'S MIRROR. This allows me to banish monsters from my graveyard or field to Fusion Summon a Dragon-type Fusion Monster. I banish the two Blue-Eyes in my graveyard, and the Alternative Dragon on my field treated as a White Dragon.”

The three monsters appeared in front of him, swirling together in a blinding rainbow of light to form a new monstrosity. The three students looked on in terror. 

“I FUSION SUMMON: Neo Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon!”

The three-headed dragon descended from the heavens, a whirlwind created from its summon. 

“I activate its effect, which allows me to discard one Blue-Eyes fusion monster from my Extra Deck up to twice per turn. For each one I discarded, I can attack again. Meaning: I can attack all three of you twerps!”

The students whimpered in fear. Was this guy for real? There was no way a monster that powerful with such a strong effect could actually exist, right?

Energy concentrated in the mouths of all three dragon heads, each taking aim at one of the students and their exposed fields. Kaiba smirked. 

“Now that you’ve learned your lesson: get the hell out of my way!”

All three heads fired on his opponents, and each of their life points plummeted to zero in unison with a deafening explosion of draconic energy. The foundation of the entire main Duel Academy building started to shake, and inside, the shockwaves from his attack could be felt. 

______________

“What the hell IS that?” Yugo asked, looking behind him. One second he and Yuri were dueling, and the next, the entire building started to fall down on him. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Kite told him. He and Aster joined the fight in the beginning, only to be swiftly defeated by Yuri and his dragon. “You can’t lose focus. You have to beat him.”

Yugo nodded his head, and closed his eyes. Remember what Rin told you, he thought to himself. Breathe in, and out. In, and out. 

Opening his eyes, his pupils started to glow with light blue energy, and his hair started to stand up on its own. 

“Oh, I see you’re harnessing Zarc as well,” Yuri told his opponent. “Not that it’ll matter for long. Greedy Venom Fusion Dragon, ATTACK!”

____________

Yuya felt a shockwave going through the entire building, but it had nothing to do with his attacks. What had caused it? When the shockwave went through, he thought he saw Leo look...concerned? It mattered not. 

A few more turns had passed. He’d managed to get Odd-Eyes and Dark Rebellion on the field, and he had a new plan. It would damage Reiji too, but Yuya didn’t care. His only priority was saving Yuzu and going home. 

“I activate: the Phantom Knight’s Possession! It allows me to treat an Xyz monster as having the level of another monster on my field. I treat Dark Rebellion as a level 7, and overlay it with Odd-Eyes!”

The two creatures turned into spirals of shadow. A galactic vortex opened up beneath Yuya’s feet, the emblem of an Xyz Summon, and the two spirals went inside. An inferno shot out from the vortex, bathing Yuya’s face in red light. 

“I XYZ SUMMON: Odd-Eyes Raging Dragon!”

The creature took shape in front of Yuya. Behind him, Reira cowered in fear at the sight of the creature. It was easily 15 feet tall, bigger than almost every single one of Yuya’s other monsters, with red-and-black clad scales, fiery wings, and massive claws the size of machetes. 

“Yuya…” Reiji asked, looking at the boy in horror. “What...what the hell IS that thing?”

Ignoring him, Yuya pressed on. He shot a quick glance at Yuzu, before turning his attention back to Leo. 

“I activate its effect, which lets me destroy all cards on the field and Raging Dragon gains 200 ATK for each one. It’s ATK will rise to 4400 with this effect.”

A bead of sweat fell down Leo’s neck. So, this was the true power of Zarc? No, this was something different. Something stranger. He hadn’t accounted for Yuya’s surprising ability to adapt, and he was sure the boy would use Odd-Eyes Rebellion Dragon instead. 

“I attack DDD Armageddon!” Yuya shouted, pointing at Reiji’s former monster. 

“I activate the final effect of Diswing Pendulum!” Leo shouted, as the Trap Card lit up once more. “Any battle damage I would take from I monster I stole is now inflicted to its original owner instead.”

Doing the math, Reira realized that this would hurt her brother too. “Wait, Yuya,” she whispered, walking over to him, “you can’t do this! Big Brother will be hurt.”

Yuya shot the child a quick glance, but ignored her as well. 

“I destroy all cards on the field, and attack Armageddon!”

This was getting out of hand. Yusho looked over at his son, then down at a nearby action card. He might be out of his prime, but he could still fight. He’d stop his own son, if it came to it. But it never did. 

“I DON’T THINK SO!”

The doors slammed open, and a tall man in a white coat sprinted into the room. An electric shock went through his entire body, and a computerized voice spoke: Intrusion Penalty, 2000 HP. 

Seto Kaiba’s duel disk was activated in an instant. He grabbed a nearby action card and inserted it into his disk. 

“Action Card: ATTACK NEGATION. All monsters summoned this turn cannot attack.”

Raging Dragon stopped dead in its tracks, and Yuya looked back over at the stranger, scowling at him. 

“And just who are you supposed to be?” Yuya asked, in a voice that distinctly was not his. 

Kaiba cracked both of his knuckles and took a battle stance, ready to face his opponent. “Zarc, I’m the man who’s going to beat you, bring back my dimension, and everyone in it!"

Reiji was a man that prided himself on his instincts, and right now, every fiber of his being was telling him that things just went from bad, to worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea where this will go, I'm literally just writing chapter ideas as they come to me. This went from a lil explanation on why Kite doesn't remember Yuma into a fullblown AU with completely original duels.


	4. Chapter 4: Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaiba starts his duel with Yuya, Reiji and Leo, and Yusho enters the fray. Secrets are uncovered.

“Look, I don’t know who you think I am, but I’m not this “Zarc” character,” Yuya explained. “My name is Yuya Sakaki. I’m from the Standard Dimension, and I’m the inventor of Pendulum Summoning.”

Seto meant to retort, but was interrupted by Leo. “Kaiba, what the hell are you doing here?!” he shouted in disbelief. “I told you, I could finish him and my son off!” 

Reiji and Yuya shot each other befuddled glances, as if to say ‘What the hell is going on?’ or ‘Who the hell is this guy?’

Kaiba? Reira thought to herself. That name sounded familiar, but where do I know it from? He must be some kind of upper-caliber duelist, if he’s ordering father around. 

“You had your chance, and you almost failed,” Kaiba snapped, pointing an accusatory finger in Leo’s direction. “Did you forget what was happening right before I arrived? You were about to lose.”

Leo scowled. He wanted to give some kind of rebuttal, but a quick glance back at his field affirmed everything that Kaiba was saying. Odd-Eyes Raging Dragon can attack twice a turn; he was finished, or at least, he would’ve been without outside interference. 

“Besides, even if you could handle it, I was growing impatient,” Kaiba said, a fiendish smirk painted on his face. “I’m the only one here that can defeat Zarc.”

By this point, Yuya was getting agitated. “I told you, I’m not Zarc!”

Kaiba’s cold steel eyes turned back to Yuya, his eyes still blazing red, a shadowy aura enveloping his being, and his hair standing straight up. “Your actions prove otherwise. Have you looked at yourself in the mirror, boy? At this point, you’re more monster than man.”

“THAT’S ENOUGH!”

Yusho stepped forward, Reira still clinging to his side. “I won’t allow you to talk of my son like that anymore,” Yusho told him. He turned over to his son, and gave Yuya a kind, knowing smile, as if to say ‘don’t worry, I’ll handle him.’

“Oh? And what are you going to do? Stop me?” Kaiba asked rhetorically. “Please, you’re well past your prime, old man.”

“Don’t let appearances deceive you, Seto,” Yusho spat. Kaiba wrinkled his nose at hearing his given name; he couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard someone call him that. The last person was probably Mokuba, before Zarc. Before the dimensions split apart like shards of glass. “I may be your senior, and I may need this,” he said, tapping his cane on the ground, “but dueling is a game of the mind, and of the emotions.” He pressed a button on his duel disk and flicked his wrist slightly, and a yellow blade of plasma appeared out of the device. 

“Don’t try to tell me what dueling is and isn’t,” Seto said, stepping forward. “History books across the dimensions speak of my name and my duels, I pioneered this technology.” He tapped his own duel disk as a visual aid. “The Solid Vision technology you people use? The duel disks on your wrists? All extensions of my machinery.”

That can’t be right, can it? Reiji thought. Maybe in another universe, but in the Standard world, our company and Yusho are responsible for the duel disks. How could they be taken from something else? He’s talking awfully high and mighty for someone we’ve never even heard of. 

“Really?” Yuya asked. “Then how come I’ve never heard of you?” he said with a shit-eating grin, just begging for a duel. 

“That’s it!” Kaiba shouted. “Sakaki, you arrogant brat, I’m finishing you off right now!”

“Not so fast!” Yusho told Kaiba. “Like I said, I’m not letting you talk to my son, and I’m not letting you lay a finger on him.”

A mechanical voice on his duel disk spoke: “Intrusion Penalty, 2000 LP.”

Reira was still close to his side. Yusho laughed, preparing himself for the pain about to come. “Stand back, sweetheart,” he told the younger Akaba sibling. “I don’t want you getting hurt.”

Reira nodded, eyes wide. Who was this strange man? She thought, as she analyzed Kaiba. And why does he know my father? 

Yusho gritted his teeth in pain as a powerful electrical shock went through his entire body; a small icon reading “4000 Life Points” appeared next to his head, only to immediately drop by half. 

What had once been a simple tag team match, with Yuya and Reiji doing everything they could to stay alive against Leo and almost defeating him, had become a frantic, five-way battle royale, with Yusho and Kaiba now in the mix. Leo’s frown deepened; Kaiba didn’t mention taking care of Yuri or Yugo, which meant that they might still be dueling. If that was the case, Leo suspected that Yugo was near defeat. Yuri had been kind enough to send videos of that gearhead idiot dueling back in the Synchro Dimension, and from what Leo had seen, Yuri was more than a match. 

But right now, if Yuri were to defeat Yugo, that might prove even more problematic, Leo realized.

He’d likely turn even more bloodlusted with another piece of Zarc in him, and based on what I’ve seen so far, these boys gravitate towards one-another like moths to a flame. 

Leo looked across the room. His and Yusho’s sons were now joined by the former entertainer duelist himself and one of the best duelists in the 21st century, rivaled only by the King of Games himself. If Yuri were to try to interfere now, this battle would be even more of a mess than it already is. 

For the first time in his 14 years of mentoring the young boy, Leo Akaba secretly, silently wished that his purple-haired pupil would exercise some restraint while dueling, for his sake. 

Kaiba looked to Yuya, then to Leo, and finally, to Leo’s son, Reiji. Reiji was glaring daggers at Kaiba. “Enough with the dramatics,” he said. “Father, the intervention of our new guest has prolonged your lifespan in this duel. Do you think now would be a good time to tell us about this interdimensional war you started? And who the hell this man is?” Reiji said, still staring down the Kaiba Corp CEO, not breaking eye contact. 

Leo sighed, before turning to Yuya. In the light of this new intervention from his partner, Leo’s previous animosity had faded somewhat, and he acknowledged that there was no other option. “Boy, what this man says is correct,” he told the Pendulum creator. “This man, the one they call Zarc...he lives inside of you.”

Yusho tensed at hearing those words, as if a small part of him died every time Yuya knew more about his past. 

“I’m sure you’ve noticed it by now. Those times you harnessed the power of Odd-Eyes Rebellion Dragon, or Raging Dragon...that was Zarc, and his influence growing inside of you ever so slightly.”

“But...who is he? Where did he come from?” Yuya asked, panicked. “And what does it have to do with Yuzu!?”

Leo looked back over to the four girls he and Yuri had worked so hard for the last six months to capture. Ruri, Rin, Serena, and finally, the one called Yuzu Hiragi. My god, she looks so much like Ray, Leo thought, the barest hint of a smile on his face. 

“It began a little over 14 years ago…”

_________

Over on the other end of the academy, Yuri and Yugo continued to duel. With Kite and Aster having been defeated by the effect of Greedy Venom, the battle simplified, and once more, two parts of Zarc were locked in glorious combat. 

“With my Crystal Wing Synchro Dragon, I attack Greedy Venom!” Yugo declared. His crystalline monster extended its wings and flew across the hall. 

“Ah, yes, and with its effect, it now gains the ATK of Greedy Venom, correct?” Yuri asked. “That’s a powerful effect; it’ll always deal 3000 ATK damage at the minimum.”

Crystal Wing crashed into Greedy Wing, and the floral dragon exploded into dust and poison clouds. 

“It might have a powerful effect, but so does my monster,” Yuri told the Synchro user. “Remember what defeated your friends? When Greedy Venom is destroyed, all monsters on the field are destroyed, and their owners take damage equal to the ATK of their respective monsters that were destroyed. A risky effect, but if Greedy Venom is the only one on my field, I won’t take any damage from its effect.”

As Greedy Venom was destroyed and Yuri inserted the card into his GY slot, a portal of purple, noxious gas and acidic fumes opened up on the academy floor; three jets of venom shot out, soaring across the hall and wrapping around Crystal Wing, which exploded in turn. 

Yugo and Yuri’s own LP ticked down from 4000 to 1000 at the same time. “How fitting: the only time either of us have taken damage this entire duel, it’s at the same time and the same amount,” Yuri commented with a smirk. 

“Shut your mouth,” Yugo told his counterpart, teeth gritted. “You won’t be smiling for much longer. I activate my face-down, Extra Shave Reborn!”

A holographic card at his feet flipped up, to reveal the Trap in question. The card glowed white slightly, and a void of blackness opened up, symbolizing the Trap Card’s connection to Yugo’s monster GY. 

“When one of my Extra Deck monsters is destroyed, this allows me to summon another Extra Deck monster from my GY with a lower level,” Yugo explained. “Since the level 8 Crystal Wing was destroyed, you can say hello to the level 7 Clear Wing Synchro Dragon once more!”

With a gust of wind resembling a small tornado, Clear Wing rocketed out of the portal at top speed, before settling down next to Yugo, who looked positively tiny in comparison to his ace monster. 

“And, since this activated during the Battle Phase, I can attack once more, this time with Clear Wing! My beast, attack Yuri dir--”

He was cut off by the sound of a Trap activating, and Yuri’s own face-down revealed itself: another copy of Extra Shave Reborn. 

“That’s a handy card,” Yuri commented. “Shame you aren’t the only one with a copy.”

Yugo took a step back. He started to realize just how in over his own head he was, and how much he underestimated Yuri’s own resourcefulness. 

“You explained it perfectly, but to recap: because my level 10 Greedy Venom was destroyed, I can summon the level 8 Starving Venom from my GY!”

A second portal opened up, and the toxic, bloodthirsty dragon that haunted the Fusion Dimension rose out of it. Yugo thought he was imagining it at first, or it was some kind of a glitch with the Soldi Vision system in this universe, but it became clearer and clearer that some kind of a shadowy aura was enveloping his opponent. 

As Yugo stared into the lifeless red eyes of Starving Venom, he found one central emotion overwhelming all others in his mind:

Fear. 

_________

“So that’s it, isn’t it?” Yuya asked. “You’re some kind of...leftover from another world?”

Leo glowered, folding his arms across his chest. “That’s not exactly the way I would put it.”

“But essentially, yes,” Kaiba summarized. “So are those other two pests, Aster and Kite. There are dozens more in this world alone that are remnants of a past existence.”

Kaiba thought back to his old life, as the founder of Duel Academy; a stern but generous benefactor, funding the education of those young pupils, watching their progress from afar. While he’d never admit to it aloud, a small part of him hoped that one of those boys could do what he could not: rise above Yugi Muto, and become the King of Games. 

The one that came closest, Jaden Yuki, was (infuriatingly and paradoxically) in the bottom 2% of the entire academy in terms of academics, and yet had the most raw talent Kaiba had ever seen in a duelist. Even then, he disappeared along with the entire school for nearly an entire month, and when he came back, he was never the same. What a shame. 

But others came close. Jesse Anderson was personally thought of by Maximillian Pegasus himself as the 4th best duelist in the world, but that was a list that also included Wheeler, so Kaiba chose to ignore his judgement. Kaiba was rather particular towards the Truesdale boys, the older one especially, though his fashion sense was a bit much. Jack Atlas would appear twenty years later, and while Kaiba had personally never dueled him (he thought that Duel Monsters on motorcycles was overwhelmingly tacky), he couldn’t deny that the boy had enough raw skill to break into the top 5. The same went for his eventual successor, Yusei Fudo, though Kaiba preferred him far less. 

“Sakaki,” Kaiba resumed, “your soul once belonged to the most dangerous mass murderer the world had seen, and uniting with your alternate selves will reawaken this man.”

Yuya’s head was spinning. In only the past two months, he’d jumped from a world of smiles and dueling to interdimensional warfare, speed dueling and brainwashing; now, his world shifted once more. 

“How is any of this even possible?” Reira whispered. 

“Child, there is much you have yet to learn about the multiverse,” Leo quietly but sternly said, as if scolding the girl. He and Kaiba hadn’t even told her about the Signers, or the Barians, or Yubel. Right now, such information wouldn’t make a difference. 

Ignoring his partner/subordinate, Kaiba kept his attention on Yuya. “Sakaki, the schemes you engineered as Zarc have been altering the multiverse’s DNA for the last decade and a half.”

“I didn’t engineer anything!” Yuya yelled. “Based on the way you’re describing Zarc, I’m nothing like him.”

“That’s a risk we can’t take,” Leo replied. “You’ve already absorbed Yuto’s essence. The closer you get to Yugo and Yuri, the more like Zarc you become. Try as we might, you and Yugo already broke into the academy.”

“So, whatever we do to you,” Kaiba continued, “is on you, Sakaki.”

“That’s bullshit!” Reiji shouted, his outrage directed at both Kaiba and his father. “You two are as responsible for Zarc’s awakening as we are! Yuri’s own sadism is a result of you grooming him, father, and it’s that sadism that led to Yugo’s vengeful rampage across the dimension, and it’s that sadism that’s endangered our group ten times over!”

“Don’t you bring that boy into this!” Leo shouted. “Everything I did to raise him, I did to raise an exceptional duelist! In this world, there is no place for weak men!”

“At the price of what?” Reiji inquired. “Abandoning your two children to live vicariously through the very boy you claim is a monster? All to bring back your dead daughter, instead of focusing on the daughter you already have!”

“Don’t you speak of Ray like that, either!” Leo barked. “You forget your place, boy. You would’ve been dead eons ago in this duel if it weren’t for Sakaki. Everything that you have, you have because of me! The clothes on your back, the duel disk on your arm, the very deck that you’ve fought me with.”

“That’s a lie,” Yuya interrupted. “Everything that Reiji has, he has because of him, and nothing more! He’s gotten as far as he had with intelligence and hard work, no thanks to you!”

“This does not concern you, offspring of the devil.”

“Of course it concerns me! The very reason why we are fighting is because of me!”

“Don’t give yourself too much credit,” Reiji said with a smirk. “His own lust for power and dominance has taken him this far.”

Leo reached over his duel disk, tugging at the sleeves of his royal purple coat. He pulled the fabric off, leaving him in a thick button-down shirt, gray as ash. “Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for this family. I will teach you respect, boy.”

“Enough!” Kaiba shouted. “I tire of your childish grievances, and your petty fatherly disputes. My own father taught me only one lesson: it’s a kill or be killed world. So, Sakaki, if you truly want to live, you’ll have to earn that privilege by defeating us in a duel!”

Kaiba held his fingers above the entrance to his duel disk, and a holographic card materialized and slid into his hand. 

“It’s my turn, and I draw!” Kaiba said. “I activate the effect of the Kaiser Vorse Raider in my hand. Because I control no monsters, I can Special Summon this level 5 monster to the field without a tribute.”

The ground next to Kaiba cracked, and a monstrous beast with blue-green skin emerged, a jagged blade in hand as tall as Kaiba himself. 

“Next, I normal summon the level 4 Blizzard Dragon,” Kaiba continued. 

A pillar of ice and frost emerged from the ground, before shattering and revealing a thin, ocean-blue wyvern with light red eyes. 

“I activate the ability of Blizzard Dragon: I can target one monster on the field, and it cannot change its battle position or declare an attack until the end of the opponent’s next turn. I choose Odd-Eyes Raging Dragon!”

Blizzard Dragon opened its mouth and shot a beam of ice, encasing Odd-Eyes Raging Dragon. Yuya glared at the beast, knowing that he couldn’t attack and if Kaiba were to break out a stronger monster now, all he could do was take the attack and hope for the best. Yuya had a sinking feeling that his expectations were about to be met. 

“And then, I activate the Normal Spell Advanced Ritual Art! This allows me to send one normal monster from my deck to the GY and Ritual Summon a monster from my hand whose level is equal to the sent material.”

The ground between Kaiba and the other duelists suddenly began to shift and break apart, and a massive altar rose several feet in the air, a mountain of coal on top. 

“I send one copy of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon from my deck to my GY, and Ritual Summon...Blue-Eyes Chaos MAX Dragon!”

A majestic peace covered in snow white scales coalesced next to Kaiba; Reira found the monster incredibly familiar, but couldn’t put her finger on where she knew it before it immediately evaporating into a yellow and blue inferno. This inferno rose into the sky and promptly crashed down atop the altar; an explosive reaction shook the room, and the altar disappeared to reveal an even bigger dragon, layered in armor and with claws the side of swords. 

Blue-Eyes Chaos MAX Dragon roared, and Reira had to cover his ears from the noise. Two icons appeared next to the dragon: one giving basic information (level, type, and the icon for the LIGHT attribute), and the other displaying a monstrous attack power of 4000. 

“4000 ATK for a level 8 monster! How is that even fair?” Yuya questioned. 

“In life, nothing is fair, Yuya,” Kaiba told him. “The only thing that we have to go on is our own strength. Not the strength of our friends, or the security of rules. Only your own wit and will to survive.”

Kaiba eyed Reiji. He saw Leo in much the same way he saw Gozaburo Kaiba; ruthless and ambitious, but ultimately a weak man that would fall as one step of Kaiba’s plan. 

Similarly, Kaiba saw a bit of himself in Reiji. He thought back to when he was that age: when he first encountered Yugi Muto, tried to take the Blue-Eyes from his pathetic grandfather, and the two crossed paths once more at Duelist Kingdom. Reiji might have been his junior and an enemy, but Kaiba knew that he was looking at someone who had seen the same carnage, and he respected that. 

Those royal purple eyes...they were absolutely lifeless. The eyes of a soldier. The eyes of a leader. 

And that was why he had to die. 

“Chaos MAX, attack Reiji Akaba directly!”

Kaiba pretended not to notice the brief flash of pain across Leo’s face. You brought this on yourself, old man, Kaiba thought. 

“NO!” Yuya shouted. 

As Chaos MAX charged its attack, blue energy forming in its mouth, Kaiba couldn’t help but ponder on what might have been. At Reiji simply made the opposites choice, and joined them, he would’ve been a fantastic weapon. Maybe he could’ve even given Kaiba a proper challenge in this shattered world; maybe he could have equalled him, or surpassed him. 

Oh, well. 

“Sakaki! Let’s see how you handle the defeat of your leader!” Kaiba declared, a callous, almost animalistic edge to his tone. 

Reiji, for what it was worth, faced his defeat with dignity. Point blank, with barely any LP and against Chaos MAX, he was likely to be seriously injured, if not outright crippled or killed by this attack. But he said nothing. He simply closed his eyes, held out his hands, and allowed the attack to come to him. 

Yusho Sakaki, however, was significantly less willing to accept the defeat. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, by sending Performpal Sky Shield from my hand to the GY, I can negate the attack of one Special Summoned monster and end the battle phase!”

Yusho slipped the card into his GY slot, and the Solid Vision conjured a clown-looking magician with a huge shield for a chest; the monster appeared in front of Reiji, blocking the beam of blue light from Chaos MAX’s attack. 

Kaiba glared daggers at Yusho. 

“Remember what I said, stranger?” Yusho asked. “I’m taking you on. That means you aren’t touching my son, nor are you touching his friend.”

Reiji looked over at Yusho, mouth agape. He...certainly wasn’t expecting such a save from Yuya’s father, and he hoped his face expressed gratitude where his words failed. 

A white dragon with sapphire eyes...the supposed inventor of duel disks...a Dragon-heavy deck…Reira started putting together this bombardment of information. 

“Wait a minute…”

Like puzzle pieces clicking together, Reira suddenly found herself gazing upon the entire picture, the truth of this stranger. 

“Big Brother, I know who this is!”

Tugging at Reiji’s scarf, she pointed across the room at Kaiba, staring him down. 

“Seto Kaiba, the #2 duelist in the world, behind Yugi Muto, the King of Games!”

Reiji’s eyes went wide with shock. “Wh...what? Reira, that doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know what I’m saying sounds crazy, but it’s true,” Reira affirmed. “He wasn’t lying when he said the duel disk was his invention! I remember reading about him in my textbooks back at the Duel School!”

Reira thought back to when she first started attending her father’s school. She picked up on things exceptionally quickly, and it helped that she was suddenly surrounded with tens of thousands of pages of information. The school library had rows upon rows of textbooks on dueling, the history of Duel Monsters, and those who founded it. 

But, tucked away in the classified section that she wasn’t supposed to read, Reira recalled a strange, faded picture that had been burnt in her brain: a brown-haired man in a white coat facing off against a purple-and-yellow-haired boy in a leather jacket. Two massive monsters stood behind each of them: one a serpentine dragon with two mouths, its scales as red as blood; and the other a towering soldier with ominous red eyes. In the background, what seemed to be an entire colosseum’s worth of people cheered for their favorite duelist. 

Underneath it, a caption written what must have been decades ago, the ink faded but no less visible:

The inventor of the duel disk, Seto Kaiba, fighting against the King of Games, Yugi Muto. 

“But...but...there’s something else...something wrong with it all,” Reira stuttered out. 

“What is it?” Reiji asked. 

“The only thing is...you lived nearly two hundred years ago!” Reira shouted, pointing at Kaiba. 

Kaiba was baffled for a moment. He thought that after everything Zarc did to fuck up the timeline, after all the people erased, the dozens of battles and leaders lost to the uncaring streams of time, he’d been one of them. 

But this girl remembered it all. 

And all Seto could do was laugh. 

It was a cold, callous laugh, but also one of relief. These kids...they finally knew just how fucked up the multiverse was. 

“I’m surprised you figured it out, kid,” Kaiba said. He looked over at Leo. “Hey, Akaba, you never told me your daughter was this sharp.”

“I didn’t know myself,” he said dryly, not loud enough for anyone to hear. 

Kaiba looked back to Reira and took a step forward, his eyes wide and frenzied. The terrified girl huddled behind her brother. 

“That’s right, kid. I was born in 1980.”

Yuya’s jaw dropped, and Reiji felt his blood go cold. Even Yusho seemed more than a little freaked out. 

“H...how?” Yuya asked. 

“How?” Kaiba asked. “Well, it’s quite simple. When Zarc split up the dimensions, he didn’t just do it willy-nilly. It’d be more obvious if the Xyz Dimension hadn’t fallen to pieces.”

Yuya snarled. “It only fell to pieces because you people destroyed it.”

“It matters not,” Kaiba assured. “None of this will matter once we restore the dimensions. Haven’t you noticed how radically different the worlds are? In technology? In social stature? Isn’t it strange that the Synchro Dimension is divided amongst itself with rampant classism, but this dimension lacks those flaws?”

Reiji, like Reira mere minutes ago, read between the lines and realized what Kaiba was saying. 

“Zarc divided up the dimensions by time period, didn’t he?”

Kaiba snapped his fingers. “Bingo, kid. You’re brighter than I gave you credit for. Yes, when the dimensions split, it was based on time period. I’m a holdover from the late 20th and early 21st century. Synchro Summoning wouldn’t be invented until years afterwards, and that time period became the basis of the Synchro Dimension, with New Domino City at the center of it all. 

“The late 21st century and early-to-mid 22nd century became the foundation for the Xyz Dimension. Well past my time on earth, but God, I wish I could have seen it,” he said almost wistfully. 

“So, you’re saying that even people like Aster and Kite...they were born decades apart?” Yuya asked. 

“Decades? That’s an understatement,” Kaiba retorted. “Aster was one of the best and brightest in the Pro Circuits when I was in my 20s. That Tenjo bastard? He was probably born in the early 2100s, late 2090s, give or take.”

Yusho put his face in his hands. All these years, he didn’t know the full extent of the damage to his own timeline. How could I be so foolish as to not see it before? He thought. 

“But there was more I remembered,” Reira continued. “That boy with the red dragon...he was Yugi Muto, the King of Games, wasn’t he?”

Kaiba’s smile faded immediately. 

“You don’t care about saving the multiverse, do you?” she asked. “You just want to fight him one more time, right? He was one of the only people to defeat you more than once.”

Kaiba’s mood shifted from mild amusement at the truth finally being revealed to outright fury. 

“A lucky guess, kid,” Kaiba said, balling his fists. “You’ll never know how much pain that bastard has caused me over the years. You’ll never know how overwhelming and terrifying it is to experience death at the hands of an ageless Pharaoh at the age of 16, and how painful it is to have your entire mind broken as a punishment.”

He slammed his fist into a nearby pillar, and Yuya saw a trickle of blood on the white marble. 

“I need to get that bastard back to this world, to fight him one last time,” Kaiba announced. He sounded beaten down, broken. “And this time, I’ll win.”

A brief moment of silence ensued, before Yuya shouted. “That’s insane! How crazy do you have to be to kill thousands--no, tens of thousands of people just to fight one guy? Do you know how many lives have been lost in Heartland City because of this pitiful crusade?”

Reiji looked up at Leo. “Father, did you know of this madman’s motivations?” he asked. Leo said nothing, turning away from his son. 

Yusho held out a hand to Kaiba. “Son, it’s not too late to stop this. There’s still time. We can fix these mistakes.”

Kaiba looked over at the Dueltainer’s gloved hand, and briefly considered it. 

“You don’t need to keep looking to the past. Sometimes, it’s better to look forward, and build a new future for yourself.”

Kaiba thought of everything that had happened in his life--his first life. Growing up with Mokuba in an orphanage, Gozaboru adopting them, his rivalry with Yugi, fighting Noah in the virtual world, journeying to Egypt, and so much more. Everything that he’s done, he’s done because of his past, because of his pain. Is that any way to live?

He swatted away Yusho’s hand. 

“I don’t need your pity, old man. It’s far too late now, and I’m well past the point of no return.”

**Author's Note:**

> I went with a different approach for this story compared to other theorists and fanfic authors. Yes, the protagonists of past series very much did exist, but they don't anymore. 
> 
> My personal theory is that Zarc had some control over the creation of the new universes, so he essentially erased these four from ever appearing because they would interfere with his plans. In the process, the absence of these four has made each universe worse, but some memories still linger...


End file.
